by David Cope

unspoken sorrow of upturned faces, crowds on Michigan Avenue scurrying,
whispering their quick talk staving off the night —

torrents fall into the streets below, scattering the thousands
yet we too must descend into the thundering siren–filled streets,

lone sax blowing on the corner as richly dressed strangers press thru the livried
servers clustered under their canopy —

the heavy rains now passed, new loves & old reclaim sidewalks,
idle chatter lips & eyes necklace & silk tie seeking the next doorway —

we among them race into the midnight market ablaze in light, shoppers meditating
deliberately, turning slowly thru plums, berries,

Italian sodas, young stud crumbling cookies into organic ice cream — we giggle like
two young lovers wandering here picking fruit,

marveling over orchids — how did we come to this, two alone apart from the family
we raised, to find ourselves again & grope toward

a new gaze, holding hands? lightning illumines skyscraper roofs & screaming
streets alike, O Love, as we head back to hotel room

& quiet dream, tears for the inevitable turning, the vast day ahead — fold a bill for the
sax player, his high strut signing Time’s slow move.

by Victoria Surliuga

A woman:
dressed in black,
sitting on a rock,
exhausted from the heat,
counts the grains of sand
fallen from her lap.
She looks down at her feet,
breaks the stem of a flower
and sucks the sap:
it’s bitter.

Translated by Michael Palma

by Alessandro Carrera

Take the act of grasping for example.
It is a gesture
the enclosure of the soul does not explain.
No desire arises that decides
and puts a hand upon this thing or that
as if the hand, my hand or yours,
or the things themselves
were waiting for it to happen. It is rather
a birth of the world
in a hollow that closes itself,
an emptiness
recalled when it is filled.
Let me explain: the illusion of your breast
hollows this hand of mine that presses it,
and turns my taking into an illusion.

Translated by Michael Palma

by Mark Terrill

The broken mirror above the cracked sink

in the cheap hotel room in the ancient harbor

on the other side of the island

seems to be saying all there is to be said

about the passing of time

and all that passes with it

except that the language of things

is always spoken in ideas

which — unlike reality — are finite in nature

and destined to implode and disappear

when the thinker stops thinking

like a dying star in a collapsing galaxy

at the other end of the universe

the light of which could never possibly

reach us in time.